The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [74]
She stood under the oak tree. Then just as she started to reach for the first limb a terrible notion came over her.
It came to her all of a sudden that Bubber was gone. She called him and he did not answer. She climbed quick and quiet as a cat.
‘Say! Bubber!’ Without feeling in the box she knew he wasn’t there. To make sure she got into the box and felt in all the corners. The kid was gone. He must have started down the minute she left. He was running away for sure now, and with a smart kid like Bubber it was no telling where they’d catch him.
She scrambled down the tree and ran to the front porch. Mrs.
Wilson was leaving and they had all come out to the front steps with her.
‘Dad!’ she said. ‘We got to do something about Bubber. He’s run away. I’m sure he left our block. We all got to get out and hunt him.’
Nobody knew where to go or how to begin. Her Dad walked up and down the street, looking in all the alleys. Mister Brannon telephoned for a ten-cent taxi for Mrs. Wilson and then stayed to help with the hunt. Mister Singer sat on the banisters of the porch and he was the only person who kept calm. They all waited for Mick to plan out the best places to look for Bubber. But the town was so big and the little kid so smart that she couldn’t think what to do.
Maybe he had gone to Portia’s house over in Sugar Hill. She went back into the kitchen where Portia was sitting at the table with her hands up to her face.
‘I got this sudden notion he went down to your house. Help us hunt him.’
‘How come I didn’t think of that! I bet a nickel my little scared Bubber been staying in my home all the time.’
Mister Brannon had borrowed an automobile. He and Mister Singer and Mick’s Dad got into the car with her and Portia.
Nobody knew what Bubber was feeling except her. Nobody knew he had really run away like he was escaping to save his life.
Portia’s house was dark except for the checkered moonlight on the floor. As soon as they stepped inside they could tell there was nobody in the two rooms. Portia lighted the front lamp.
The rooms had a colored smell, and they were crowded with cut-out pictures on the walls and the lace table covers and lace pillows on the bed. Bubber was not there.
‘He been here,’ Portia suddenly said. ‘I can tell somebody been in here.’
Mister Singer found the pencil and piece of paper on the kitchen table. He read it quickly and then they all looked at it The writing was round and scraggly and the smart little kid hadn’t misspelled but one word. The note said: Dear Portia, I gone to Florada. Tell every body.
Yours truly, Bubber Kelly They stood around surprised and stumped. Her Dad looked out the doorway and picked his nose with his thumb in a worried way. They were all ready to pile in the car and ride toward the highway leading south.
‘Wait a minute,’ Mick said. ‘Even if Bubber is seven years old he’s got brains enough not to tell us where he’s going if he wants to run away. That about Florida is just a trick.’
‘A trick?’ her Dad said.
‘Yeah. There only two places Bubber knows very much about.
One is Florida and the other is Atlanta. Me and Bubber and Ralph have been on the Atlanta road many a time. He knows how to start there and that’s where he’s headed. He always talks about what he’s going to do when he gets a chance to go to Atlanta.’
They went out to the automobile again. She was ready to climb into the back seat when Portia pinched her on the elbow. ‘You know what Bubber done?’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘Don’t you tell nobody else, but my Bubber done also taken my gold earrings off my dresser. I never thought my Bubber would have done such a thing to me.’
Mister Brannon started the automobile. They rode slow, looking up and down the streets for Bubber, headed toward the Atlanta road.
It was true that in Bubber there was a tough, mean streak. He was acting different today than he had ever acted before. Up until now he was always a quiet little kid who never really done anything mean. When anybody’s feelings were hurt it always made him ashamed and nervous.
Then how come he could do all the things he had done today? They drove very slow out the Atlanta road. They passed the last line of houses and came to the dark fields and woods. All along they had stopped to ask if anyone had seen Bubber.